Tuesday, December 16, 2014

UPDATE: Honorable confirmed to federal energy commission seat

UPDATE: News reports say the Senate confirmed Colette Honorable to a position on the Federal Energy Commission by unanimous voice vote Tuesday night. So now the question: Who will Gov. Mike Beebe appoint to replace her on the PSC?

From earlier:
Politico says flatly that the nomination of Arkansas Public Service Commission Chair Colette Honorable to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is on the list of presidential nominations that Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid hopes to push through confirmation votes this week.

She'll make it next year, regardless, because her nomination lacks opposition from Republicans.

But confirmation this week is important back home. Word continues to circulate of quiet Republican opposition to a vote on Honorable this week. If she's confirmed now, it allows Gov. Mike Beebe to appoint someone to fill out her term. If not, Asa Hutchinson gets the PSC pick after he becomes governor Jan. 13.

This post on a utility industry blog is indicative of several that indicate the power companies are hopeful that Hutchinson will get two PSC appointees in the next month. The coal burners presume Asa Hutchinson is friendlier than Mike Beebe, who was not exactly a scourge of utilities, though his PSC did hold down an Entergy Arkansas request for fat executive pay.

A man was killed and and a woman was critically rounded in a shooting Sunday nigth at 21st and Oak.

Additional pleadings have been filed in the citizen's lawsuit challenging the new Arkansas voter ID law that includes evidence the new law resulted in votes in a recent special election in Russellville not being counted.

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John Goodson — the Texarkana attorney, D.C. lobbyist, and husband of Arkansas State Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson — was reprimanded today by a federal judge for his conduct in a class-action case.

The El Dorado School District HAS gone to federal court in response to the state Board of Education's approval, over El Dorado's objection, of the transfer of a white student from El Dorado to the majority white Parkers Chapel School District.

A petition drive has begun to encourage a demand that Sen. Jason Rapert pay for the legal fees in defending his Ten Commandments monument proposed for the state Capitol grounds. It's more work by the Satanic Temple, which has fought church-state entanglement around the country.

by Max Brantley

Aug 28, 2016

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A federal prosecutor in Missouri said Friday that a former legislator, Henry Wilkins IV of Pine Bluff, had said he'd received $100,000 in bribes as a state legislator from indicted former lobbyist Rusty Cranford. He was not alone on an illicit dole.

On Wednesday, both chambers of the Arkansas legislature approved identical versions of a bill to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, the powerful health care companies at the center of a dispute over cuts in reimbursements paid to pharmacists.

We learned today of the death of a long-time Arkansas Blog friend, Richard Boosey Jr. of Mount Vermpn/

A federal prosecutor in Missouri said Friday that a former legislator, Henry Wilkins IV of Pine Bluff, had said he'd received $100,000 in bribes as a state legislator from indicted former lobbyist Rusty Cranford. He was not alone on an illicit dole.